"An amazingly clever novel with
depth, drama, and warmth."
 —Anita Shreve

"Delicious reading."
—Booklist

The Writing Circle
Hyperion/Voice
July, 2010

ISBN 978-1401341145

Selected by Indie Booksellers for the July 2010 Indie Notables

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     A tale of love, betrayal, and literature: the story of six members of an elite writing circle who share much more than their works-in-progress.

     When Nancy, whose most recently published work is a medical newsletter, is asked to join the writing group made up of the local literati, she accepts, warily. She’s not at all certain that her novel is good enough for the company she’ll be keeping. But Nancy soon finds herself as caught up in the group’s personal lives as she is with their writing.

     They call themselves The Leopardi Circle. There’s Gillian, a beautiful, scheming, world-famous poet; Bernard, a pompous but lovable biographer; Virginia, a respected historian and the peacemaker of the group, who is also Bernard’s ex-wife; Chris, a divorced father and successful thriller writer; and Adam, the youngest of the group, an aspiring novelist who is infatuated with Gillian. Through their complicated relationships, these eccentric characters share their families (some have been married to and divorced from each other), their beds, and their histories (buried secrets have a way of coming to light).

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Advance Praise

An amazingly clever novel with depth, drama, and warmth. The characters are so sharply drawn, they will stay with you long after you've reluctantly put down this beautifully rendered tale.

-- Anita Shreve, author of The Pilot's Wife

If you think you've got a novel in you, The Writing Circle is the book for you. But even if you don't, even if you just love reading a compelling story narrated with wit and charm, that is sad and funny by turns, and populated by characters whose moral struggles are more profound than they know, this novel will leave you completely satisfied. The Writing Circle is a reading treat.

-- Valerie Martin, author of The Confessions of Edward Day

The Writing Circle, a novel about the lives of members of a writing group, their relationships to one another and to those outside the circle, is a story as intricate as a Persian carpet. And, like the best weaver, Corinne Demas has you following thread after thread throughout the narrative with a sense of wonder and delight.

-- Anne Bernays, author of The Trophy House

Through its artful use of multiple voices, its memorable characters and elegant prose, The Writing Circle weaves a web that tightens slowly around you as you read until you find you simply can't put it down. The is a wonderful book, tense, engaging, and highly recommended.

--Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club

Excerpt

         The house is set on a hillside, with a long driveway that leads up to it and disappears around the back. It’s after dinner time, already dark. A garage door at the rear of the house opens, and a pickup truck backs out and turns around. Whoever is driving has not turned the headlights on, and if you were viewing the scene from above, you would barely make out the truck as it comes around the side of the house, as it heads down the driveway.

         A figure cuts across the sloping front lawn and starts down the driveway, towards the road. It’s probably a woman, but she’s dressed in black, and almost invisible in the dark. A young man is standing by the house, watching her. Light spills out of the doorway behind him. He hears the pickup truck as it emerges around the corner of the house and he turns towards the sound. Then he cries out something—the woman’s name perhaps—but she does not hear him. She’s halfway down the driveway, just at the point where it takes a sharp turn. He flies down the hillside, plunges towards her, towards the point of intersection.